Before he tells you how a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan became the man in charge of the New York Yankees' top minor league team, Rob Crain wants to tell the story of how he met Brian Cashman. More accurately, it's the story of how Cashman predicted his marriage.

It's December, 2004. It's Anaheim, Calif., it's Major League Baseball's annual Winter Meetings and it's long before he'd get the biggest break of his career as president and general manager of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's reborn Triple-A franchise. It's actually days before he'd get his first job in professional baseball, and just hours after he and his best friend met a Connecticut girl named Amy and asked her to have a drink.

One o'clock in the morning. Three friends, old and new, talking. Crain is on a job-hunting trip, and so was Amy, but at this hour, he's wearing his Boston Red Sox cap and chatting the night away.

"I feel a tap on my shoulder, and a guy says, 'Nice hat,' " he laughs. "I turn around, and I'm like 'Brian Cashman! Good to meet you!' "

The fresh-from-college 22-year-old invited the then-three-time World Series-winning Yankees general manager to sit down, and Crain still sounds surprised Cashman took him up on his offer. They talked, mostly about the heated rivalry between their beloved teams. The Yankees had just signed Randy Johnson. Jason Giambi was going through some off-the-field issues.

Then Cashman gazed toward Crain and Amy.

"He looks to Amy and me, and he says, 'So, when are you two getting married?' " Crain said. "I'm like, 'Brian, I've known her for 24 hours.' But he was emphatic: 'No, no, no - you two are getting married.'"

Four years later, Rob and Amy Crain were married. When they sat down to finalize their guest list, they decided to ask Cashman to be there. They sent a letter, invitation and a picture to the Bronx.

He didn't show.

Several weeks after nuptials were exchanged, Crain received a call from his mother-in-law. A letter had arrived at her house, and the return address indicated it came from the New York Yankees.

"Dear Rob and Amy, Congratulations on getting married. If only I could predict all-stars like I predicted your future wedding plans. Congratulations, again, Brian Cashman."

The letter hangs today at the renovated PNC Field, as a souvenir in Crain's office.

'A WINNER'

Rob Crain's rise to the top of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders franchise could have been foretold by any number of predictions.

It wouldn't be accurate to say he ranked as an underdog when, last June, the struggling franchise hired him away from his assistant general manager's role with the Omaha Storm Chasers and pinned the future direction of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre baseball on his lapel.

Nor would it be correct to say he didn't display uncommon promise early in his career. The man running the franchise that hired him first called him "a winner" who wound up in "a perfect spot" to display his talents.

His mentor, who gave him his first job and his second and his third, said he knew just weeks after hiring him that Crain had star potential.

"He was high on our list," said Art Matin, CEO of Mandalay Baseball Properties, which along with the New York Yankees, owns and operates the RailRiders. "He is a really genuine guy. He really cares a lot about everyone involved in this - the fans, the community, the players, everyone on our staff. And that comes through in everything he does.

"Certainly, we were attracted by his previous track record of being fan- and experience-oriented. It was never lost on us at all that he had really relevant experience for this job."

Before he gets into that relevant experience, though, Crain has to tell the story about how he could have thrown it all away with one impetuous decision.

NO THANKS, TEXAS

It's January of 2005. It's a lonely stretch of highway just to Canada's side of the border. It's the final leg of Rob Crain's westward trip to Battle Creek, Mich., where his first full-time job as corporate sales executive with the Class A Southwest Michigan Devil Rays awaits him. That's when his cell phone rings. It's the NFL's Houston Texans.

Crain's passion always has been baseball, ever since the days growing up in Burlington, Mass., where his first T-ball coach was his mother and he cheered for the Red Sox like they were all that mattered in life. He did some relief pitching during his days at Springfield College, ranking his mound ability as just about "terrible." He even had a summer internship with the Concord Quarry Dogs of the New England Collegiate Baseball League.

Even today, the mere thought of that team's logo - a menacing bulldog in a hard hat, wielding a pick axe with a baseball stuck to the end - brings back fond memories.

But Crain's first big break in pro sports came a judgement away from being in football.

Just months earlier, he had completed an operations and scouting internship with the Texans. Basically, he edited video, mostly of college quarterbacks who might be available for the Texans to select in the mid- to late-rounds of the 2005 NFL Draft, and sent it off to the team's scouts to review. The two quarterback prospects who stood out to him then were Connecticut's Dan Orlovsky and Oregon State's Derek Anderson. Both would go by the time the sixth round broke a sweat. Anderson later would make the Pro Bowl with the Browns. Both are still backups in the NFL.

The Texans must have been impressed. Crain picked up the phone.

"My career came to a complete high road or low road," he said. "I just accepted a job to go work for the Southwest Michigan Devil Rays, making $16,000 a year slinging $3 group tickets in Battle Creek, Mich. Very lucrative.

"I'm literally driving in my 1996 Ford F-150 with a U-Haul attached to it right across Canada. And I get a call from my old boss with the Texans. He said, 'Rob, we want to hire you as a full-time intern. I need you down here in two weeks.' "

Crain asked for some time to think. The Texans gave it to him. He turned the offer down.

He doesn't know why. The best reason he can offer is that he made a commitment to the people in Battle Creek. That commitment might not have been good personal business, but it was enough to turn down what sure seemed like a faster-track offer.

By 2006, the Texans staff that had first noticed Crain's talents began to fall apart. General manager Charley Casserly's staff opted to take defensive end Mario Williams first overall in the draft instead of USC star Reggie Bush, and Crain heard that not everyone in the Houston front office agreed with that decision.

On June 1, 2006, after a controversial draft pick and a 2-14 season, the Texans fired Casserly.

"The entire staff was turned over," Crain said. "I would have been out. If I would have taken the Texans job, who knows what would have happened?"

SUBHEAD

Martie Cordaro doesn't even want to think about how he might have had to trudge through the past decade without Crain's help.

After all, he's the first person who took note of his protege's seemingly limitless energy. He was the Southwest Michigan general manager who hired him for that $16,000-a-year job. He was the man who was told he could hire anybody for the open Corporate Sales Rep position with the Triple-A Omaha Royals in 2006 shortly after he himself took the assistant general manager's job there. And he couldn't imagine leaving Crain behind in Battle Creek.

Crain took the promotion. One season later, Cordaro became Omaha's general manager. The year after that, he needed an assistant GM, and guess who he promoted?

"He really has a knack for rolling up his sleeves and working hard," Cordaro said. "I taught him everything I knew. To be quite honest, I taught him too much, because he was able to move on to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre."

See if this story sounds familiar: A ballclub whose season attendance is slumming in the 300,000 range. A distressed market, and a team not giving back to the community, finding innovative ways to attract new fans or even build on the relationships with the loyal ones it had. A team named after a big league affiliate that didn't exactly bring out warm feelings in every fan. An older ballpark that needed an update.

Sounds like the situation Crain is in now. Back in 2007, though, that was Omaha. In Nebraska, there's Cornhuskers football, and there's everything else, and after decades as the only other show in town, the Omaha Royals were growing stale. In the heart of Sarpy County, plans were being made to construct new, state-of-the-art Werner Park to house the team, and under Cordaro's leadership, Crain was an integral part of that process. He also helped with the rebranding of the team, which in 2010, led to its renaming to the Storm Chasers.

While Cordaro's duties became consumed with the stadium project and the rebranding, Crain took on a greater role in the everyday operations of the club. He became adept at dealing with players and coaches. He connected with community business leaders, establishing himself as the go-to salesman with the club.

"Some of his clients liked him so much, they used him in their ads," said Alan Stein, the former Omaha president. "I remember he was on a billboard (for the Centris Federal Credit Union). That really just goes to show you how much energy he had and how well-liked he was here."

But most of all, he became a known and respected face in the community, which knew him affectionately as "Boston Rob," because his New England accent became the dominant sound of Storm Chasers pregame activities.

He helped conjure some of the promotional ideas that propelled attendance to skyrocket in Omaha.

In 2009, with four engaged couples expressing interest in being married at Werner Park, Crain helped develop "Four Weddings and a Funeral Night." The couples were married after the game. A lucky fan, if he could be called that, won a free funeral during it.

In 2010, Crain proposed "'Jersey Shore' Night." Any fan coming through the gates with a receipt for hair gel or a tanning salon, or with a blowout-style haircut, received a free ticket for the game.

"It was fun to see who dressed up like that for 'Jersey Shore Night,' and who just dressed like that every day," Cordaro laughed.

His most famous brainchild came years earlier, though.

In 2008, when going through resumes of prospective interns, Crain noticed one came from a young man named Tyler Cobb. Yes, he went by Ty Cobb. He was even born on Dec. 18 - the Hall of Famer's birthday.

So on Aug. 15 that season, Cordaro and Crain teamed up to throw "Ty Cobb Night" at Werner Park. Fans received a Ty Cobb baseball card - featuring the intern's likeness. They were treated to Ty Cobb autographs - again, from the intern. But the highlight of the night turned out to be the Win A Date With Ty Cobb contest - held despite the intern's protests.

That November, ESPN the Magazine recognized Ty Cobb Night with a Veeckie Award, a rather coveted honor in minor-league circles that recognizes the renowned baseball showman and promoter Bill Veeck.

The Storm Chasers won the award for... "Best Exploitation of an Intern," Crain said, smiling.

SUBHEAD

Last summer. It had become clear at this point that SWB Yankees LLC had found its man to lead the franchise into a new era. Shortly after former president and general manager Kristen Rose resigned in April, Crain sent Matin an e-mail, asking to keep him in mind when it came time to interview candidates. By that point, Matin said Crain already had moved to the front of the list of candidates in his mind, anyway

One interview led to a few, and one took Boston Rob to The Bronx, where he would talk shop with the longtime chief operating officer of the New York Yankees, Lonn Trost.

He walked side by side with Matin. Heading to Trost's office. Down a long hallway at Yankee Stadium. Doors lining both sides of the way like the pine trees back in Burlington. A walk that would determine if, finally, he'd get his chance of a lifetime.

"All of a sudden, Cashman pops out of this room," Crain said with amazement. "He says hello to Art. Art says, 'Do you remember Rob Crain?'"

"And Cashman says, 'Are you still married?'"

SUBHEAD

So no, this isn't a Cinderella story. Nobody shocked the world. Rob Crain didn't happen to be in the right place at the right time with the right pitch.

Cordaro called it a hard-working guy getting an opportunity he deserved.

Stein likened it to a top prospect landing in a perfect job to showcase his ability.

Matin called him a fun guy with fun ideas, coming to a community that demanded them out of their baseball team.

"His energy is certainly a major asset," International League president Randy Mobley said. "Let's talk about the situation in Scranton in particular. We needed energy there. We needed someone who could appeal to the media, who could connect with fans, who could connect with sponsors. He has that type of energy, and it comes to the surface, very, very quickly.

"The success they have there is going to be largely due to his energy."

Opening Day is days away, and Crain can almost taste the hot dogs and the cold Pepsis. He has been awaiting this day, too. He's a fan, after all. He thinks like one. He acts like one. He wants to have fun like one.

That's part of the reason he has entrenched himself in the community so quickly, he said. Every market is different, so it stands to reason that communicating with the marketplace is different here than it was in Battle Creek or Omaha.

To Crain, Scranton is a value-based market, one that knows its baseball and knows what it wants from its ballpark experience. So, in his first seven months on the job, Crain said he has focused on doing two things: Learning what local fans want. And handing it to them.

"We're just trying to do our best to listen to them," he said. "If we can give them dollar hot dogs and two-for-one tickets and let the kids eat free, they can come and experience the ballpark and really let the ballpark and our franchise be their entertainment destination. That's what we want, and that's how we want to communicate with them going forward."

It's a simple idea, he concedes, even if local fans would contend that it became a novel one over the last few years.

So, the man who lived up to so many predictions has one of his own for the future of baseball in Northeast Pennsylvania.

Only good things, he said. This is only the beginning.

Contact the writer: dcollins@timesshamrock.com

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